Clive was born and brought up in Staffordshire and gained an honours degree in geology from Birmingham University in 1954. After a university expedition to Spitzbergen, he joined the Colonial Geological Service as a geologist with the Geological Survey of Malaya. He undertook extensive mapping, at times with a detachment of UK soldiers as protection in the jungle during the Emergency. He also carried out mineral, groundwater and engineering surveys, and ground-truth follow-up to a national airborne magnetic survey. He was appointed Member of the Order of the Defender of the Realm (Ahli Mangku Negara) by the King of Malaya in 1960.
He returned to Birmingham University in 1966 where he worked on the results of his Malayan fieldwork: he had found the first graptolite fossil in Malaya and went on to discover, and name, many new species. This study brought him widespread recognition, and gained him a doctorate in 1968. Clive then joined the Overseas Division of the Institute of Geological Sciences (now the British Geological Survey, BGS) and was posted to Iran where he spent two and a half years mapping in the Talish Mountains and Caspian Forests.
In 1971 he was seconded to the Botswana Geological Survey as the Assistant Director responsible both for the Geological Mapping Division and to oversee the Survey’s administration. In 1975, Clive became the Director of the Survey and remained in this post until 1980. His time in Botswana coincided with the success of the country’s mining sector which transformed Botswana’s economy: the Orapa and Jwaneng diamond mines started operations as well as the nickel-copper mine at Selebi-Phikwe. The Geological Survey played a critical role in establishing the successful collaboration between the private mining companies and the Botswana Government. Clive’s recognition of the importance of the mineral sector to Botswana’s development ensured that the Geological Survey initiated and led major multi-national geological and geophysical programmes that covered the whole country including the vast swathes of the Kalahari Desert. The results of this work meant an explosion of private sector mineral exploration with major new mineral discoveries. Clive also directed the successful localisation of Geological Survey’s professional staff, and his contribution to Botswana’s prosperity was recognised in the award of an OBE in 1979.
Clive returned to the UK in 1980, where he managed BGS’s overseas projects in Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, which included the setting up of a Geological Survey Department in Hong Kong.
Clive was a great naturalist: after retiring in 1990, he spent his time developing a wonderful garden in Uppingham; running field excursions; studying the relationship between geology and vegetation in the ancient woodlands of Rutland and East Leicestershire; and providing input for his wife’s archaeological fieldwork.
Clive, with his wife Elaine, died in a road accident on 9 May 2022. They leave behind their son, Geraint, their daughter Alex, and their granddaughter Lara.